A planar dual-polarized phased array with broad bandwidth and quasi end-fire radiation for 5G mobile handsets

Abstract

A planar dual-polarized phased array is proposed for 5G cellular communications. The array has the properties of dual-polarization, wideband and quasi end-fire radiation, which is printed on one side of a single-layer substrate. The design contains two 8-element sub-arrays including horizontally polarized end-fire dipole antennas and vertically polarized end-fire periodic slot antennas, employed on the PCB ground plane of the 5G mobile platform. Both sub-arrays provide wide bandwidth to cover 28 and 38 GHz (promising 5G candidate bands). The -10 dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed CPW-fed dipole and slot antennas are 26.5-39.5 GHz and 27.1-45.5 GHz, respectively. Moreover, for -6 dB impedance bandwidth, these values could be more than 20 GHz (24.4-46.4 GHz for the dipole antenna) and 70 GHz (22.3-95 GHz for the slot antenna). The fundamental characteristics of the proposed dual-polarized 5G antenna array in terms of the impedance bandwidth, realized gain, polarization, radiation pattern, and beam steering are investigated and good results are obtained. The clearance of the proposed dual-polarized 5G antenna array is less than 4.5 mm which is sufficient for cellular applications.